


harsh realm

by crookeds



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, kinda related to the other hubert piece i wrote but only...vaguely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26760493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookeds/pseuds/crookeds
Summary: The night he kills his father, she comes to visit.Hubert bows, and Edelgard beckons him to stand straight again."It's done?""Yes."Hubert and the things he does for Edelgard. And himself.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra
Kudos: 16





	harsh realm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thimble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/gifts).



> uh oh! vaguely related to my other hubert character study, but this means to look more at hubert AND edelgard, hopefully.

He'd traveled far enough that the cold sinks deep down into his bones—a permanent etching, certainly—the first of many hidden scars underneath his skin. 

And even when Hubert's father strikes him for his insolence, a warning, he does not stop thinking of her. Cheek red, bruising beneath his eye, if he were anymore impulsive he'd spit at his feet and risk another slap to the face. 

"I will not let you die for this girl," he'd said, desperation hidden underneath an angry tongue. "The Empire approaches a new dawn, and I will drag you out of the dark, kicking and screaming, if I must."

He adjusts the cuff of his sleeve, sighing heavy and letting a weight that is not often shown reveal itself in the posture of his form. And Hubert burns with hatred regardless, never flinching from his tired stare. 

This is the second time he's tried to leave. 

Edelgard has been gone for more than a year. He has his suspicions on where she's been sent, of course, careful not to be caught when he rummages through his father's things or listens to him speak with Aurendel or von Aegir—but he is still a child, and even the most concrete of his ideas are still smoke between his fingers.  
  
There's only silence, father, and son. 

Count Vestra eventually dispels the stillness and orders the guards with the snap of his voice, "Take him to his room."

When Hubert is pulled away, his arms sore as he is dragged along once again, he hears him before the door is slammed shut. "And do not leave him alone."

  
—

  
He bends the knee when she enters the room, magic still warm on his hands as if the blood smears his palms. He doesn't hesitate, in spite of the mess that remains behind him.

Behind him, a body. A (former) noble who had threatened to expose a plan newly in the making if he had not been promised safety and land and nobility in exchange for his loyalty.

Even he is disappointed, but not surprised, in how rooted those in charge seemed to be in their old ways. 

Hubert had siphoned the color from his skin as if drawing a knife across his skin. His parting words said with a smile, "There will be no room for the likes of you in Lady Edelgard's empire."

When Edelgard looks over the scene, she already understands. 

But later, as they "study" quietly in the library of his father's manor, alone and unbothered, she asks him over wavering candlelight, "Have you killed before tonight?"

He looks at his bare hand, ink staining the knuckles of his fingers. The response isn't immediate—instead he wipes at the stain with the pad of his thumb, quietly quirking a brow at the darkness that stubbornly remains when the rest is smudged away.

"No," he confirms. "But I do not feel burdened by it."

He casts his gaze to her. "Neither should you, Lady Edelgard." 

His quill rests on the table. She thinks a moment before responding, "Then I won't be."

And if she wants to say more, she doesn't—watching Hubert a second longer until she looks back to her own parchment, staying silent. 

He resumes his own work, pausing only to pull the white silk of his gloves back over his hands.

  
—

  
The night he kills his father, she comes to visit.

Hubert bows, and Edelgard beckons him to stand straight again.

"It's done?"

"Yes."

Her eyes are colder these days—things fully in motion, school days over, kingdoms finally at war. Their classmates surprising them and staying by their side is the only comfort among the madness, but even that is a slight one.

It will be their lives for their ideals, if they do not win. A calculated risk, as always. 

"His death—it was unnecessary," she looks to the desk behind him. This had been his father's quarters—now they are his own. "He could have lived as we'd left him, stripped of his titles."

"With all due respect, your majesty," Hubert starts, "It's much cleaner this way."

What he doesn't admit—what he hardly even has to say, really—is that he hadn't believed that his father was the type to deserve to live, anyways, even at the loss of everything he's known. 

Then again, he's so used to playing judge, jury, and executioner now, it had simply seemed the correct course of action.

"Lord Vestra will have those who wish to take revenge on his behalf and cover his tracks."

"I have already sent my best to take care of the problem."

Silence. A retainer and his Emperor, contemplating what has gotten them this far.

Whatever thoughts threaten to pass are interrupted by the hand on his arm. Smaller than it seems, warmer too—she looks up to him with a small smile, the first he's seen in many weeks. "And you, my friend? Are you alright?"

Is it comforting? Reassuring? He can't decide in the moment—his skin going cold at the idea of his own vulnerability, stomach curling at relenting even some of what he carries onto her shoulders, when they're already so heavy.

"I am perfectly fine," he says, reluctant, but then firm, "If you have concerns, then do away with them. Your energy is best spent on something of relevance."

"Your feelings are of relevance to me," she counters.

"And they are fine, as I said."

She quirks a brow—skeptical, not believing what he says, of course, but knowing that it won't be pressed any further.

"I wouldn't lie to you," is the most reassuring he can be, and he only sighs slightly as he says so.

"Good," she relinquishes his arm, stepping back again. "I don't believe you, regardless, and we will speak of this again later," Edelgard steps further into the room, with business of her own to discuss, surely. 

"But I'll let you have this for now."

  
—

  
At the dawn of a new world still in the making, Edelgard sits atop the crest of the horizon. 

Hubert stays at her side, unseen but remembered by those who watch from the battlefield adjacent to them.


End file.
